Analysis of the fast food market in Kazakhstan

The role of LSM (local store marketing) in the development of the fast food market is very important. It is a marketing service that can be used to properly manage communications, demonstrate the effectiveness of advertising and as the basis for promotion and stock mechanics. Nowadays, the fast food market in Kazakhstan is worth around 280-310 millio

Examining risk as guideline in design stage for green retrofits projects: a review

Green buildings have generally been adopted as strategy towards sustainable development to reduce greenhouse gas. The implementation of green concept recently has widely spread over the year. However, the positive impact to the environment is still low due to heavily focus on new construction project as compare with retrofitting the existing building. A retrofit practice is not only regaining overall existing building appearance, but the improvement towards energy efficiency is remarkably significant at the expense of huge challenges and risk. As a consequence, retrofit practitioner is confronting an assortment of risks at the early stage of the project. Given that, green retrofit concept is emerging research area to Malaysia construction industry which motivates to determining the risk involve in design stage. This paper aims to review risk in design stage for green retrofit project for commercial buildings through gathering comprehensive literature review. As a result, two main category risks in design stage (technical/quality risk and financial management risk) is determined and extracted to identify risk. These risks are then quantified through analysis to enhance design performance within costbenefit. The proposed conceptual framework model is expected to assist retrofit practitioner to identify risk and obtain feasible retrofit strategy

β-Divergence Nonnegative Matrix Factorization on Biomedical Blind Source Separation

β-divergence has been studied for years, but it is yet to be discovered thoroughly. In this paper, we proposed the nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) by using β-divergence in blind source separation (BSS) on biomedical field. The proposed idea is basically aimed at the separation of normal heart sound with normal lung sound. Temporal codes and spectral basis were modelled into a separated source, which is applied to the synthesis and real life data using multiplicative update rules. In the experiment, estimated and original source were compared to evaluate the performance of various source separation algorithms within a general framework, where the original sources and the noise that perturbed the mixture were included

A review of free fatty acid determination methods for palm cooking oil

Free fatty acids (FFA) is one of the main content of palm cooking oil. High percentage of FFA in palm oil can affect human health and the quality of palm oil. Based on quality standards specification set by Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB), the allowable content of free fatty acid (FFA) for crude palm oil (CPO) must not exceed 5%, meanwhile less than 0.1% of FFA in Refined Bleached Deodorized Oil (RBDO). There are many researches have been carried out to determine the level of FFA. However, they are using different type of cooking oil. A few researches are also reported regarding the palm cooking oil but they are using different method such as titration, spectroscopic, gas chromatography, reflection method and other type of detectors. All methods to determine the amount of free fatty acids (FFA) in palm cooking oil are reviewed in this paper

β-Divergence Two-Dimensional Nonnegative Matrix Factorization with Sparseness Constraints for Biomedical Signal Separation

A novel of β-Divergence for nonnegative matrix factorization two-dimensional (NMF2D) with sparseness constraints is proposed in this paper. This research focuses on biomedical signal separation, which denotes a separation on the mixture of heart sound and lung sound. Initially, a mixture of heart sound and lung sound has been decomposed into an independent signal, which is an estimated heart sound signal and estimated lung sound signal. The spectrum of independent signal is modelled based on 2 dimensions, which are the temporal code and the spectral basis by using β-Divergence NMF2D algorithm with sparseness constraints. The algorithm has been updated multiplicative and iteratively via multiplicative update rules (MU rules). β-Divergence with sparseness constraints allows minimization on the vagueness of source model to be completed and oneness has been applied to it. Then, estimation of each separated audio has been analyzed via comparison with the original heart sound and lung sound signal in term of Signal-to-Distortion Ratio (SDR)

A knowledge-driven GIS modeling technique for groundwater potential mapping at the Upper Langat Basin, Malaysia.

The aim of this paper is to use a knowledge-driven expert-based geographical information system (GIS) model coupling with remote-sensing-derived parameters for groundwater potential mapping in an area of the Upper Langat Basin, Malaysia. In this study, nine groundwater storage controlling parameters that affect groundwater occurrences are derived from remotely sensed imagery, available maps, and associated databases. Those parameters are: lithology, slope, lineament, land use, soil, rainfall, drainage density, elevation, and geomorphology. Then the parameter layers were integrated and modeled using a knowledge-driven GIS of weighted linear combination. The weightage and score for each parameter and their classes are based on the Malaysian groundwater expert opinion survey. The predicted groundwater potential map was classified into four distinct zones based on the classification scheme designed by Department of Minerals and Geoscience Malaysia (JMG). The results showed that about 17% of the study area falls under low-potential zone, with 66% on moderate-potential zone, 15% with high-potential zone, and only 0.45% falls under very-high-potential zone. The results obtained in this study were validated with the groundwater borehole wells data compiled by the JMG and showed 76% of prediction accuracy. In addition statistical analysis indicated that hard rock dominant of the study area is controlled by secondary porosity such as distance from lineament and density of lineament. There are high correlations between area percentage of predicted groundwater potential zones and groundwater well yield. Results obtained from this study can be useful for future planning of groundwater exploration, planning and development by related agencies in Malaysia which provide a rapid method and reduce cost as well as less time consuming. The results may be also transferable to other areas of similar hydrological characteristics

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Correction to: Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake